KELI From Inkwell, this is the Amarillo News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.
HAST West Texas A&M's campus police are fielding a surge in electric scooter thefts as the semester opens. University Police say the volume is higher than usual — bikes and scooters vanishing from residence halls, bike racks, and near academic buildings left unattended. It happens most years, but the start of fall term brings a spike. No dollar total on what's been taken, but if you park one on campus, secure it.
KELI The counter-read here: campus theft typically gets framed as individual students being careless, and that's part of it. The structural piece is that WTAMU has deployed these scooters as cheap transit infrastructure across a sprawling campus, but without the theft-prevention hardware or enforcement that universities with older, heavier bike systems have built in. Watch the next two weeks — if Police announce locker systems or GPS tracking pilots, that tells you administration is treating this as a design problem, not just a behavior problem.
HAST Staying local, TxDOT has northbound I-27 closed at Country Club Road today from nine a.m. to five p.m. — metal beam and guard fence repair. Plan around it if you're heading north out of Amarillo.
KELI Heat's not breaking anytime soon. The National Weather Service says this summer is the second-hottest on record for Amarillo — thirty-eight days at or above one hundred degrees between June and August. August alone logged eighteen days over one hundred, with an average temperature of ninety-one point eight degrees, nearly seven degrees above normal. The hottest year on record was twenty-eleven with fifty days at or above one hundred. This year we may be close to done with the hundred-degree days, but not yet.
HAST On the state front, Trump's PAC just dropped ten million dollars into a general election ad buy for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's U.S. Senate race. The Texas Tribune reports it's MAGA Inc.'s first general election spend of this cycle, a signal to the GOP apparatus that this Senate seat matters. The race tightens the Republican hold on the seat.
KELI A Medicaid fraud lawsuit against Planned Parenthood is proceeding in Texas court. The Texas Minute reports the case moves forward on the state's allegations. Details are limited in the early filings.
HAST Congressman Van Taylor has taken the fight over Flock safety cameras to Capitol Hill. The automated license-plate reader system has drawn pushback across the country, with communities moving to shut installations down. We've covered this locally — the surveillance and Fourth Amendment questions stay live as federal lawmakers weigh in.
KELI The Amarillo Police Department presented the Texas Panhandlers 100 Club with the Heart of Service Award yesterday. The nonprofit was recognized for volunteer leadership and community work.
HAST Before we close, a history note.
KELI In twenty-oh-seven, Israel executed Operation Orchard — an air strike that destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria.
HAST That's the Amarillo News Drop. Full script and sources at inkwell.wiki/news/amarillo.
KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. Gil's Intelligent Version has a new companion piece on how the Latter-day Saints read the Trinity — three distinct beings, one in purpose, rather than three persons of one substance.
HAST It's an evenhanded look at the same question, decided the other way. At inkwell dot wiki, slash godhead.
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